Resonance
by bite-or-avoid
Summary: They’re looking at each other in a dark room at three in the morning, and laughing like lunatics. B/B- Part 3/3 Now complete!
1. Part One: Spectre

**Title: **Resonance (1/3)  
**Author:** Anna (bite_or_avoid)  
**Pairing:** Booth/Brennan, as always  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, although I wouldn't turn down some of the proceeds. Or DB. One or the other. Or preferably both.

**Spoilers: **Everything through the season finale

**AN: **So, this is another post-EitB fic. But with a spin. There is no focus on the infamous question heard 'round the net, no mention of Booth's dream, and no struggle with their newly exposed attraction. **This is something entirely different. It is much darker and more angsty than anything I've written for them in the past, and the style is a departure for me.** I feel like it's a little OOC for Brennan at this stage in her emotional development, but the idea just wouldn't leave me alone. Just chalk it up to a reflection of my current pre-boards psychosis. :-(

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**Part 1~ Spectre**

It isn't until later that Angela's words resonate.

She'd been too busy to let them touch her, then. After all, there had been a hastily formed plan for motherhood, not to mention a mostly liquefied human being.

And, as if to prove the truth in the artist's words, there was Booth's illness.

But even then, she hadn't let it penetrate. Not when she clutched his hand in pre-op. Not as she watched them drill holes in his skull with baited breath and unblinking eyes. Not when she sat a silent vigil at his bedside for four unbearable days that caused a shift in the foundations of everything she thought she knew. Not even when he had opened those eyes that so often bore down into the depths of her, now confused and uncertain and the complete antithesis of everything that was _Booth_.

It's only after-- after he sleeps and wakes again, the puzzlement clearing from his eyes; after he tells her '_Go eat something, Bones. And bring back pudding'_; after he's home and _him_ and she can breathe again-- that her friend's statement winds its way around her heart.

Constricting it. Smothering it.

And then she can hear nothing else.

…_You think feelings are ephemeral. So is life, Brennan. _

_We're here one minute and then we're gone the next. _

With each syllable, she imagines him on that cold steel table, the anesthesiologist unable to slow his racing heart. The surgeon unable to extricate the culprit, a tumor the size of a button effectively removing him from this world.

How easily it could have happened. How easily he could have died.

She can see nothing else.

A world without Booth.

No more warm hand at the small of her back in that place he'd claimed as his, and his alone.

No more cocky grin across a table and a couple of beers.

No more reminding her to eat, challenging her with every breath and comforting her with every other.

No more breath.

No more Booth, with his childlike exuberance, to crowd her isolated existence and fill it with life and color.

No more flesh, or blood, or heart, or even brain.

All that's left of him, of her--- only bones.

No more Bones.

She can't breathe.

She shuts down.

***

It doesn't take him long to figure it out. Something is seriously wrong with her.

It's subtle at first.

She talks less. Spends more time in the lab. Insists she's too busy to grab dinner. When he does manage to coax her out, their friendly banter is perfunctory. Like an afterthought, leaving a bitter taste on his tongue.

"What's the matter, Bones?"

"Don't call me Bones."

That stings worse than a slap to the face.

"I always call you Bones, Bones."

"Well, it's about time you stopped."

She leaves the bar.

He doesn't see her for three days after that. Every time he comes down to the lab, she's MIA, and every time he braves her apartment it's empty.

On the fourth day, they have a case. He waltzes into her office with a file in his hand, grateful for the excuse to see her. She glances up to ask him about the remains, and his heart nearly stops.

The way she looks at him. Through him.

Eyes of clear, clear blue. Like ice.

When he tries to guide her with a hand on her back, she walks faster.

***

Cam corners him on the catwalk.

"There's something wrong with her."

"No kidding."

"Fix it, Seeley."

For the first time, he doesn't know how.

He doesn't know what's wrong with her. This isn't the Bones he knows. This isn't even the Bones he _knew_, the one that tilted her chin up in defiance and looked down her nose at him. Called him on his crap, called him a coward.

This isn't the reckless, fearless, genius woman who'd managed to permeate every aspect of his life. Every aspect of his damn being.

He has no clue _who_ this is.

And frankly, it's starting to piss him off.

She's acting like he'd died for crying out loud.

…

_Oh._

_Dammit._

_She's acting like he'd died. _

And just like that, he understands.

***

He stakes out her apartment. It's not the most… rational thing to do. Certainly not the least disturbing. She hasn't really given him much of a choice though, so this is the way it's gonna have to be.

He sees her come home, struggling with the keys in a kind of daze. His chest feels heavy. He's done this to her, somehow, turned her into a shadow of her former self. To everyone else, she's just acting detached. But he can see how lost she is, how much this is costing her. How much she needs to make herself believe that she's alone in the world, and always will be. Because losing someone who matters to her is not a risk she's willing to take again.

He never thought anyone could break her. Least of all him.

He gives it thirty minutes, then grabs the food off the seat beside him and high-tails it up to her apartment.

He can help her. If she'll let him.

***

When she answers the door, the look of annoyance on her face is so familiar that he nearly laughs.

"What are you doing here?"

She sounds exhausted.

He holds up the bag in his hand and lets himself in.

"Figured you've probably starved yourself all day."

"I'm not a child, Booth. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of my own needs."

"I know you are. Maybe I'm not. Maybe I need _you_ to make sure _I _eat."

"That's ridiculous."

She crosses her arms in a defensive posture, but doesn't tell him to leave. He figures, if she really wanted him outta there, she could have pulled out the flying monkey on him, or whatever crazy form of martial arts she prefers these days.

They eat in relative silence, speaking only to discuss the case.

This distance- it's the strangest feeling he's ever had.

His gut is all twisted up in knots, and the food tastes like ash.

More than that, he hurts _for_ _her._

Because she's all twisted up too, and doesn't even know it.

He holds her gaze across the table. Those few feet are the most treacherous terrain he's ever attempted to traverse. He does it now because he has to reach her.

Losing her; it just isn't an option for him.

She needs an anchor and he can do that for her. He can be anything she needs.

His voice is infused with all the things he cannot tell her.

He tells her the one thing she needs to know. The one thing she needs to believe.

"Bones, I'm right here."

"I know, Booth."

But she doesn't see him.

He presses a warm hand to her shoulder before letting himself out.

Yet no matter what he does, he can't touch her.

He wonders if he really is a ghost.

***

He haunts her every waking moment. The non-waking ones too. Which is absurd, because she told him herself once that there are no such things as ghosts. But she sees him, hears him, feels him everywhere, and it takes all her energy just to get through the day.

She straightens her back, drags in a breath, and locks the sensations away.

She's running out of places to store them.


	2. Part Two: Echo

**Disclaimer:** Not mine

**A huge thank you for all of your comments, and to all those who favorited and alerted this story. I really appreciate it!**

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**Part 2~ Echo**

Sweets appears in her office with a frown. She's managed to avoid their last two sessions but, it seems, he's taking it rather personally.

"Why are you guys avoiding me?"

"We're not, Sweets. We're simply very busy."

The _we_ rolls off her tongue in an old habit, not easily broken.

The psychologist's eyes are earnest. An eager puppy wanting to be loved, accepted. Wanting to belong.

What had Booth called them? The land of misfit toys?

She had excommunicated herself from that realm. How could she offer Sweets anything?

But he must know something, no matter how lacking psychology is as a science, because---

"Is there something going on that I should know about, Dr. Brennan?"

"What do you mean?"

"You seem---"

"I'm sorry, but I really do have quite a bit of work to do."

She leaves a startled young man in her wake, and wonders when she became so good at pretending.

***

She escapes to Limbo.

The masses of unknown, unclaimed human beings envelop her in their forgotten lives.

Only they are more lost than she.

Working long into the night, she hears his voice echoing through the empty corridors. Whispering promises. Whether she had known they were promises or not, she'd believed him.

Faith.

It was what Hodgins and Cam said she had.

It wasn't faith.

She had inspected and analyzed and measured him. She had pushed and pulled and tested, and he had remained steadfast.

Proof.

Unquestionable, reproducible, quantifiable proof. That was what he had given her.

But he isn't a law of science. He isn't uncompromising, unalterable.

He isn't eternal.

The fragments beneath her fingers fit together like pieces of a puzzle.

If only reassembling herself could be so easy.

***

"Bren, why are you doing this?"

Angela's heels tap out a harsh melody in the silence. She looks… angry, which is difficult to rationalize. Because, after all, isn't she the one who put the idea in Brennan's head in the first place?

"Because these people deserve to be remembered, Ange."

"Don't pretend to be obtuse. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

"I really don't. And there's no need to insult me."

The artist huffs out a breath, softening.

"Look, sweetie… I'm sorry, ok? You're shutting everyone out, and we're worried. Talk to me. Tell me what's going on with you."

Brennan sighs, gently putting down the bone she's holding. There's no avoiding it when Angela gets like this.

"I'm not sure what you expect me to say."

"I don't _expect_ anything. What I would _like_ is for you to tell me who you are, and what you've done with my best friend. I've never seen you like this. You're so closed off these days, you're starting to rival Fort Knox."

She doesn't say, _I don't know what that means_. The truth is, she kind of does know what it means.

She just doesn't know how to make it stop.

"I don't understand this, Bren. You were fine. Insane procreation schemes notwithstanding, you were in a good place. Booth got sick and you were totally there for him. Now, he's back to full stud capacity, and you're not even on this plane of existence anymore."

_You were fine._

But will _he _be? The next time someone kidnaps him. Or blows him up. The next time he has a medical crisis.

Will he be fine?

Or will he be gone, like everyone else who leaves her behind?

"You were right, Ange. It's better this way."

"As much I love hearing I was right, I don't exactly remember anything I could have been right about."

"You merely pointed out that life is fleeting. That one day we are here and the next we aren't. I agree. No relationship is permanent. I think I may have made the mistake of neglecting that fact these last couple of years."

The look on Angela's face is one of realization.

And horror.

And outrage.

In truth, her friend has never looked at her that way before.

It's really rather frightening.

"Sweetie, don't take this the wrong way, but that is a steaming load of elephant crap."

The vehemence in her tone is so astounding, Brennan can't help but flinch.

"I can't believe you're putting this on me. As I recall, I was encouraging you to open up to possibility, not hide behind walls of fear and regret!"

"Possibility is risk. Risk begets consequence. I can't spend my life wondering if I will be able to cope with the consequences of my actions."

The artist's demeanor softens. She shakes her head sadly, tone less forceful but not diminished in urgency.

"Now you listen here, and you listen good Brennan. Forget risk. Forget consequence. Booth? His feelings aren't transient. That man loves you. He would do anything for you. And you're hurting him. What's worse, you're hurting yourself."

Her footsteps echo long after she leaves the world of the dead behind her.

So do her words.

***

Hodgins brings the results of a particulate analysis to her office. It's an unusual thing for him to do, but they're all being peculiar around her these days. She supposes she can't blame them.

She wouldn't be comfortable around herself either.

On his way out, he stops in the doorway. Considering.

"Can I ask you something, Dr. B?"

"Did Angela put you up to this?"

"Why would she do that? I'd just screw up whatever she was plotting."

The bug and slime guy grins. Then, like the flick of a switch, the grin falls.

His blue eyes bore into hers.

"Do you ever wake up in the dark and think, for a second, you're back in that car?"

Her breath catches. Of all the things he could have asked her, she never anticipated this.

Wordlessly, she nods.

She knows better than to tell him that in the dead of night, she can still hear his screams.

"How do you deal?"

"I time my respirations for maximal physiological benefit. I turn on all the lights and do yoga, or sometimes write, until I am satisfactorily convinced that---"

"Can I show you something?"

She is startled by his interruption. By this whole conversation, really.

They've never talked about any of this before.

Maybe they should have.

"I don't really think that---"

"Please, Dr. B. It's pretty important."

She studies him, this man who is her colleague and friend, but not someone she really knows.

They shared something profound though, even if they have never spoken of it.

Something about the way he stands, hands in the pockets of his labcoat, intense gaze fixed on her, indicates that he thinks he knows something she doesn't.

She doesn't question his resolve.

"Alright."

***

She can't remember another time Hodgins drove her anywhere.

No. There was that one day, when Booth was in the hospital….

She doesn't want to think about that now.

"Where are we going?"

"Patience is a much underrated virtue."

"While this is true, I wonder if you really believe that. After all, you are always eager to coerce an unsuspecting intern into one of your outlandish experiments. As far as I am able to discern, there is no inherent act of patience in foregoing traditional methods of scientific inquiry in favor of dropping frozen turkeys or smashing watermelons."

"Well, I didn't say it was a virtue I possessed, did I?"

He grins.

She feels strangely comforted.

***

She knows where they are. She just doesn't understand why.

After all, did she not just tell him that this was what her nightmares were made of?

"Why did you bring me here?"

It is a betrayal, she thinks. He has assumed far too much about her, about their relationship.

"It looks the same, doesn't it?"

Brennan scowls at his deliberate avoidance of her question. But she finds herself looking out regardless, scanning the expanse of the quarry that had nearly been her final resting place.

"Why would it look any different?"

"I come here, sometimes. When I can't sleep."

He stares out into the distance, and she wonders if he even remembers that she's still there.

"I wake up, gasping for air. Choking. Before, I had Angie. And… Zach."

His voice is a shaky whisper over the forbidden name. She feels the twinge in her chest, and thinks this is another thing they share.

Hodgins blames himself.

But he is blameless.

It was her. Her job, her responsibility.

Zach is a living breathing person. She could have made a difference _before_ he became the culpable victim of an erroneous logic he himself defied.

In that fact resides the biggest failure of her life.

Hodgins is still speaking, and she really, truly tries to hear.

"But now… There's no one. When I wake up in the dark, I'm alone. Usually."

He smiles sadly, finally looking at her.

"So I come here."

She waits for him to elucidate. He waits for her to ask.

"Why?"

Apparently, tonight patience isn't her virtue, either.

"To prove to myself that I'm still here. If I'm standing _here_, I can't still be under _there_, can I?"

She has a very vivid image of being pulled up from beneath the void, pulled up, up, up into light and warmth and sunshine and Booth's fierce embrace. She remembers his smile, the look in his eyes that mirrors her own, their shared nearly maniacal laughter.

Their shared realization that it is not merely herself and Hodgins rescued from certain death, but a part of all of them.

Their shared elation at being alive.

_They are both alive._

Is that what Hodgins is trying to tell her?

"You were fearless, down there, Dr. Brennan."

"That's not true. I was… very much afraid. I had no desire to die."

"Then why are you denying yourself the right to live?"

This catches her off guard. Even Angela hadn't dared phrase it quite this way.

"I am not denying myself anything. Why is everyone so concerned with my personal choices?"

"Because. Whether or not you let things touch you, _you _touch _us_. Cam, Booth, Ange--- you all have lives outside of the Jeffersonian, people that matter. Even you. _This_ is the only family I have. And I don't like to see you take it for granted."

A year ago, a month ago, maybe even five minutes ago, she never would have allowed him to speak to her this way. But something is different in the way she sees him in this moment, his small solid frame outlined in the growing dusk.

She respects his boldness. It's much more tactful than her own.

Much more effective.

"Your assumptions about me, although rooted in psychology, appear to be correct. I have been acting… unfairly to the people around me."

It's the closest she can come to admitting she's wrong. Not for how she feels, but for how she's handled it.

For how she's regressed.

"They're actually rooted in direct observation. I dislike baseless conjecture as much as the next guy."

They watch the remains of the day scatter like dust particles from the starless sky.

He asks her---

"What made this different from all the other times both of you have nearly died but didn't?"

"I don't know."

She knows.

That's the difference.

She knows what she feels now.

Can put a word to it.

She just can't say the word.

But it's inside her, ingrained in the very bone.

Screaming to be free.

Afraid to be free.

Afraid of choice, and loss, and mortality.

Afraid that once Pandora's Box is opened, she will not be able to shut it again.

Afraid of the consequences.

So much fear. So irrational.

The things she's seen and done… and _this_ is what proves frightening beyond measure?

It's tearing her apart.

"I don't know," she whispers again.

But she does.

And she can't hide from it any longer.

She stands for another moment before walking up the embankment toward the car.

Leaving this place, where she was pulled from beneath the unforgiving earth.

She ascends to the world of the living.

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****The lack of Brennan/Hodgins acknowledgement of what they went through together really bothers me, so I decided to rectify it :) I thought it would be interesting to have the person she very nearly died with, someone who is for all intents and purposes the most peripheral to B/B, be the one to get through to her. **


	3. Part Three: Existence

**Title: **Resonance (3/3)  
**Author:** Anna (bite_or_avoid)  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Do I really need to say this every time?

**Many thanks for the continued support everyone!**

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**Part 3~ Existence**

He wakes up face-first in the couch cushions, the quiet flicker of the TV bathing the room in an eerie glow.

Brushing a hand over his sleep-rumpled face, he pads over to the open window.

Forgot to close it earlier.

A shiver runs the length of his spine.

The boxers and old Nittany Lions t-shirt are doing nothing to protect him from the chilly breeze.

But that's not why he's shivering.

He just feels… cold.

Numb.

Like there's some residual anesthetic still coursing through his veins. But without the pleasant side effects.

He looks out over the city and wonders where she is.

Home, maybe.

Maybe she can't sleep. Maybe she's looking out her window, at the same city, the same night sky, and wondering the same thing about him.

Finally meeting him halfway.

Maybe she's feeling the same kind of numb.

But that's stupid.

In reality, she's probably at the lab, poring over the remains of some dead guy found in a cave somewhere.

Doing what she did before he barged into her life.

Doing what she'll do after he's gone.

Not that he'd ever leave of his own volition. He wouldn't. She can freeze him out all she wants, protect herself all she wants.

He gets it.

He meant what he'd said to her.

He's _right here_.

Question is, how much damage will they do to each other before she realizes that?

Sighing, he slides the glass pane down, shuts off the TV, and makes the trek to the bedroom.

He lays in a cold bed, eyes open and unseeing.

Rubs at his chest, as if to dissipate the ache there.

Thinks about how much of what he is, is being denied.

Twisted.

Stretched to the breaking point.

He's a patient man. He's had to be; patient and calculating and precise.

He talks a good talk of being spontaneous and carefree and all that other fun guy crap. The reality is, if he hadn't possessed those qualities, hadn't honed and perfected them over long years doing things a human being should never have to do, he wouldn't have survived.

So, he's patient. Knows how to bide his time and wait for that perfect moment.

Knows when to take a chance. When to take the shot.

The waiting, he can handle. Hell, he's been waiting on her for four years.

If he were being totally honest, he always figured he'd have to wait at least a couple more.

But this…

This… uncertainty.

It's the worst torture he's ever known.

He closes his eyes, pictures her face.

_I'm right here._

He doesn't realize he's said it out loud.

***

The next time he wakes, face-first in a pillow, his internal radar is going off louder than the neighbor's car alarm.

He's not alone.

The gun hidden beneath the mattress is almost in his hand when he hears---

"Are you awake?"

Her voice is so soft, he wonders if he imagined it. But he can see her now, silhouetted against the doorframe to his room.

Standing at the threshold as if unsure if she wants to take a step forward, or take a step back.

He releases the breath he's been holding, and pushes himself up in the bed.

"Geez, Bones. You trying to get yourself shot?"

"I knocked. Repeatedly. You didn't answer. I was worried, so I used my emergency key." She pauses for a second, that familiar scolding affection weaving its way into her tone. "You know, for a former sniper, you're really a rather heavy sleeper. If this is our government training at work, I am immensely underwhelmed."

"Hey! I'll have you know no one, and I mean no one, has _ever_ gotten the drop on me!"

"What about Hugh Kennedy?"

"Well, that doesn't count. I mean, the guy's nickname was Ice Pick for crying out loud. And besides, I wasn't sleeping. I was just… looking the wrong way."

He cringes, because that actually didn't sound much better.

And then he realizes what's happening.

She's here. In his apartment. Talking to him.

Talking to him like she used to.

They're both silent for a while.

There's a million questions running through his head, and he can't really make sense of any of them. For one thing, he's still fuzzy from just waking up. For another, he's kind of flabbergasted by the thought that she was just standing there, watching him sleep.

"C'mre, Bones."

It's sort of a hoarse, strangled whisper, and he hears her make this strange little sound in response.

Like a burden released with her breath.

She hesitates for only an instant before taking a silent step towards him. Then a second. And a third. They're sure, easy steps. As if she finally knows exactly what she's walking towards.

She stops just short of the bed and simply…. looks at him. The lights outside his window dance across her face, and she looks like the most beautiful apparition.

He reaches out, extends his hand to see if it is an apparition he can touch. An experiment of sorts. He wonders, were he to call it that, if she'd be proud.

She doesn't take his hand. In fact, she takes a step _back_, and he clamps down his fist dejectedly. But her eyes are still focused on his face, and he looks back at her, questioning.

She steps out of her shoes.

Her hands undo the buttons of her shirt; that same careful precision with which she sorts through death to acknowledge life.

She moves on to her jeans, pushing them down the endless stretch of flawless pale legs.

She stands there in nothing but a camisole and string bikini, and all of a sudden he's pretty damn sure he's still dreaming.

"Bones….?"

There's no answer, not a verbal one anyway. But there's answer enough in the way she lifts up a corner of blanket and settles into the bed beside him, calm and composed and almost… familiar.

Yep, definitely a dream.

It's not like any dream he's ever had though.

She's just _looking _at him.

Tender and open like he hadn't been sure was possible.

But he knows: once she makes up that brilliant mind of hers, there is no such thing as halfway. Why should this be any different?

Her hand reaches for him, to the back of his head, seeking out the burr holes. It rests there for a moment. Traces the indentations. Winds its way down his neck to the front of his body. Comes to rest on a spot just above his right pectoral.

The t-shirt can't hide what they both know is there.

It's barely discernible through the fabric, merely a slight puckering of the skin.

From beneath the skin, beneath the wall of muscle, beneath the bone of ribcage, the reverberations echo into her hand.

The thump thump thump of his heart, sure and steady.

Like him.

He covers her hand with his own. She leans into him, her hand still trapped in its Booth-shaped prison.

He can feel her gripping the muscles of his back with her free arm. Can swear she drops a brief kiss against his chest as she burrows her face into it.

That small gesture is nearly his undoing.

She pulls him impossibly closer as if to squeeze the life from his body into hers, and she doesn't make a sound. But she lets the tears fall.

***

"I apologize for acting irrationally."

They're lying side by side, heads propped up on their arms, facing each other. Her eyes are red-rimmed and watery. They're a kind of blue he has only ever seen tucked away in the far corners of the world.

The sky three days on foot into the desert.

The lagoons within coral atolls off the coast of Belize.

The Logan sapphire she herself dragged him to see.

He never imagined that color could exist in a human being.

He glances down at his damp shirt and raises an eyebrow.

"Just now, or before?"

She smiles, that soft barely- there quirk of her lips that she saves just for him.

At least, he likes to think it's just for him.

"Now that you mention it, both. But I was really referring to the way I have been treating you these last few weeks. I can't account for my actions, Booth. I can't even really explain…"

"Hey." He lifts her chin with a careful finger. "You don't have to justify yourself to me, Bones. Not ever."

She nods silently, chewing on her bottom lip.

"I know that. But I believe you deserve some sort of explanation."

He shrugs, attempts to lighten the mood.

"Most of your explanations are way over my head anyway."

"Don't do that, Booth. Don't downplay your intelligence for my benefit."

"I don't. Thought we'd covered that already."

She eyes him speculatively, forging ahead.

"Objectively speaking, I believe that the impetus for my recent behavior was… fear."

The last word is nearly a whisper.

A hesitant admission of such an utterly _human_ emotion.

He doesn't respond. He's afraid she'll stop talking if he does.

"I was afraid, Booth. And I was ashamed of that fear."

He laces his fingers with hers, prompting her to continue.

"I was ashamed because it wasn't something I could rationalize. Or control. I thought about how easily I could have lost you and I realized… I realized that I've taken for granted your place in my life. I realized that if I continued to do so, losing you would change me. Irrevocably. In ways I can't conceive of."

At this, he can't remain silent.

"So you decided to lose me on your own terms. As if you had a say in the matter."

"Yes. But that did not to turn out the way I had anticipated. I think… Do you remember what you told me once, the first year we worked together? That it's never just the one person who dies?"

He nods. He laid himself bare before her that day.

Yeah, he remembers.

"I know you were speaking of war, of the things you had done. This is an utterly different situation. But I believe… I believe that statement is applicable here as well. To you and me. To us."

"What are you saying, Bones?"

"The way I tried to deal with the situation, acting as if you were… It is not something I wish to experience again. I did not feel like a whole person. It was… unbearable."

He stares at her, taking in the emotions flittering across her face.

Her walls have been stripped to the very foundations.

It scares _him_, a little.

Tomorrow, he thinks. Tomorrow she'll be herself again.

But tonight… tonight she's allowing herself to _need _him.

And he won't disappoint her.

Ever.

"Bones?" he breathes.

"Yes, Booth?"

"We're both alive."

And the words must have some meaning to her that even he hadn't intended, because a full smile adorns her face.

"Yes," she says with a laugh. He laughs too, because, lets face it, when she laughs like that it's kind of infectious.

They're looking at each other in a dark room at three in the morning, and laughing like lunatics.

He doesn't care. He hasn't felt this good in years. Maybe ever.

To see her like this… it's indescribable.

His thumb brushes across her cheek, and she just leans in and kisses him.

It's not a long kiss.

Not earth-shattering.

There's no fireworks or explosions or unrestrained passion.

But she kisses him like it's the most natural thing in the world for her to do.

She kisses him like she means it.

And that's more than enough.

***

It isn't until later that Angela's words resonate.

She'd been too overwhelmed to let them touch her, then. After all, there had been a hastily constructed emotional vault, not to mention a rapidly dissolving partnership.

And, as if to prove the truth in the artist's words, there was her own barely suppressed conscience.

Then, she had barely let it penetrate.

It's only after-- after she comes to him in the night; after they sleep and wake again, the fear clearing from her mind; after he tells her _'You're not gonna get rid of me, Bones. Not even when you'll want to'_; after they're back to being _them_ and she can breathe again-- that her friend's statement winds its way around her heart.

Bolstering it. Emboldening it.

And then she can hear nothing else.

_Booth? His feelings aren't transient. _

_That man loves you. He would do anything for you._

With each syllable, she looks up to see him beside her, offering a charming smile. Reaching out for her with tenderness.

How easily he offers himself up to her.

She can see nothing else.

Booth.

Just Booth.

Encouraging her to be fearless again.

Enriching her life.

Making it feel like more. _More._

The brain and the heart. Showing her the balance between them.

She breathes in.

She knows love.

_Fin._


End file.
